


They Dine On Memory

by Lassarina



Category: Final Fantasy VIII
Genre: Gen, Guardian Forces, Meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-11
Updated: 2011-05-11
Packaged: 2017-10-19 06:12:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/197824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lassarina/pseuds/Lassarina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Guardian Forces each seek different things from the memories of their hosts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	They Dine On Memory

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Shadowblight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowblight/gifts).



> For the prompt:
> 
> The GFs have always protected and served those who defeat them in battle, but they draw their abilities from the person's memories. How does this work? Do they have memories of previous masters, perhaps somehow related to the current cast? Do the GFs hold/feel the memories just as dearly as whom they've been taken from, or is it more a simple tool to be used? Pick whatever GF inspires you really, but some of my favorites are Bahamut, Odin, Ifrit, and Quezacotl.

They call on him, these children who have learnt to summon ancient archetypes to increase their own power, but Bahamut does not think they understand him. From time immemorial he has borne the weight of the world upon his back; even now he does so, though a fragment of his consciousness diverges from time to time to aid those who are able to defeat that fragment in battle.

How he assists and what he demands for it depends upon what his caller requires; for the green-haired child on another planet centuries gone past, he came at her call when she had defeated him and all the others she called Eidolons, and asked no more toll than a portion of her strength. For the girl who sought to save her world from spiraling death, and stood firm against all else in pursuit of that goal, he demanded resourcefulness. She had it to spare, which pleased him.

For the blonde woman who leashed him with her whip and demanded his constant presence, he takes rather more: she doesn't know how to spend her spiritual strength to call him, so he takes her memories instead. Her insecurities he leaves behind, for they do not interest them; only her strength.

She tries to take the weight of the world on her own shoulders, and that interests him; she is powerful with magic, and that pleases him. He prefers to serve those with strength beyond the physical. He nestles close into her mind, and searches through her memories in search of tidbits that will make him stronger. He sees her friendships as a child, and takes the strongest that remain; other, lesser beings have been here before him, and taken the best, but he can see deeper than they, and he takes that which she managed to keep through sheer force of will. He gives her his strength, because she proved her worth, but she will never be good enough, worthy enough.

He does not tell her that it is because she does not believe herself worthy that she cannot be worthy of his respect.

* * *

Odin has always known that sacrifice is the key to knowledge.

Once, he loved a mortal woman, and stood steadfast before her when the sorcerer Raiden would have slain her. He sacrificed his life to become a stone statue, until the girl who carried some fraction of their power in her soul freed him and claimed him as her own, and then transformed him into the very sorcerer who had defeated him.

He sacrificed himself again to save a kingdom he had ruled as a distraction during the long sleeps between summonings; the men he raised as sons grew strong enough to defeat him, and he considered it an honor to have given them the basis for their strength.

He has come at the call of many, over lifetimes and worlds.

This time he waits atop a ruined tower in the center of a forgotten continent. Driven by knowledge, children come to him. Seeking strength, they battle him. Unlike his brethren, he does not feast on memories; he feasts on the blood they spill in battle, and tastes their valor. He tastes the sparkling silver rush of magic, and the burning heat of anger. He battles by their side when he feels it relevant, and does not lift his sword when he does not.

These children are yet too young to know the value of what they give up to a Guardian Force; a sacrifice unknowing is not meaningful to him. So he holds himself apart from them, and it is that separation that leaves him vulnerable to Gilgamesh's blade; but in return, they gain a stronger ally, and he gains a new appreciation for his own weaknesses.

Sacrifice is the key to all knowledge.

* * *

Ifrit knows that some of the others judge him for his willingness to play chained servant to the SeeDs who reside in Balamb Garden. Bahamut sneers disdainfully whenever he looks over from inside Quistis's head. The Dragon Father sneers at Shiva and Quetzalcoatl as well, even more than he does at Ifrit, for they do not even require battle to serve.

What the others do not understand is that he has always chosen to serve masters who earned it. In a world called Gaia, he split himself into fragments concealed inside brightly sparkling topaz; for those with the wisdom to see, his power could be summoned out of them. On the Planet, he sealed himself within crystal condensed from the world's energy. In a world called Spira, he waited in a temple for those with the cleverness to find their way through the Cloister of Trials.

Like the rest of them, he doesn't serve for free. He takes memories of the times when his host was the strongest. Not all strength is physical, but Ifrit prefers to taste the thrill of battle and struggle whenever possible. He is not delicate and gentle like Siren, seducing and teasing at memories until they yearn into her hands like flowers to the sun. No, he crashes through doors and slams through the dressers of memory, ransacking for the things he finds interesting. Sometimes he crushes softer, more fragile memories beneath his feet; that is the price of his power.

What the others don't understand about him is that by making the task of claiming him easier, he gets at the memories faster; he can take what interests him and leave the wreckage behind. The "greater" Guardian Forces must feast on his leavings. Also, he considers it an honor to lend his strength to a cause, so long as the summoner believes it is a good one.

It is the kind of thing that pleases Ifrit more than being thought powerful on his own merits; he doesn't need them to tell him how strong he is. He already knows.

* * *

Lightning isn't constant.

It is the quick flash across the night sky, the joyous anticipation between brilliance and sound.

Quetzalcoatl is quick, and unexpected, and he flickers like the storm through the minds of his summoners. He likes the fleeting memories, the ones mostly forgotten, or left in fragments after someone less careful has already taken what they desire. Quetzalcoatl likes riding in the same mind as Ifrit, for that reason. Ifrit's carelessness leaves many fleeting sparks in its wake, and Quetzalcoatl takes the remnants of fire and transforms them into lightning.

He tastes them carefully, like the whisper of a storm's electricity raising the hairs on someone's skin, a sensation he enjoys provoking whenever someone Junctions him. He picks up the memories in his beak and tucks them delicately into his nest, lined with feathers and down he pulls from his own body. Once he has claimed them, they float, tiny orbs of lightning that he can choose from at will.

He sips from them like hummingbirds sip nectar, in careful little morsels. The brevity of his power makes him appreciate the long stretches between it even more. He takes care with the memories from this world, because unlike the others, he doesn't have forms in other worlds. No summoners tattoo his name on their skin to open a connection to the Feymarch; his sigil does not appear on the walls of Madain Sari, nor does he have a jewel in Gaia. He has no magicite, no Materia, no temple in Spira.

Quetzalcoatl cherishes the memories he takes, and guards them against the day when he might get the chance to build a world from nothing, as his fellows have done.


End file.
